A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

ARISTEAS.
other traditions which place him before the time of
Homer, or describe him as a contemporary and teacher of Homer. (Strab. xiv. p. 639.) In the account of
Herodotus (iv. 13-16), Tzetzes (Chil. ii. 724,
&c.) and Suidas (s. v.), Aristeas was a magician,
who rose after his death, and whose soul could
leave and re-enter its body according to its pleasure. He was, like Abaris, connected with the
worship of Apollo, which he was said to have introduced at Metapontum. Herodotus calls him
the favourite and inspired bard of Apollo (poto'dAaelrJros). He is said to have travelled through
the countries north and east of the Euxine, and to
have visited the countries of the Issedones, Arimaspae, Cimmerii, Hyperborei, and other mythical
nations, and after his return to have written an
epic poem, in three books, called T 'Apicda-Treia, in
which he seems to have described all that he had
seen or pretended to have seen. This work, which
was unquestionably full of marvellous stories, was
nevertheless looked upon as a source of historical and
geographical information, and some writers reckoned
Aristeas among the logographers. But it was
nevertheless a poetical production, and Strabo (i. p.
21, xiii. p. 589) seems to judge too harshly of
him, when he calls him an dvcjp y'/s Y' TLS d'Aos..
The poem " Arimaspeia" is frequently mentioned
by the ancients (Paus. i. 24. ~ 6, v. 7. ~ 9; Pollux, ix. 5; Gellius, ix. 4; Plin. H. N. vii. 2),
and thirteen hexameter verses of it are preserved
in Longinus (De Sublim. x. 4) and Tzetzes (Cliil.
vii. 686, &c.). The existence of the poem is thus
attested beyond all doubt; but the ancients themselves denied to Aristeas the authorship of it.
(Dionys. Hal. Jud. de Thucyd. 23.) It seems to
have fallen into oblivion at an early period. Suidas also mentions a theogony of Aristeas, in prose,
of which, however, nothing is known. (Vossius,
De Hist. Graec. p. 10, &c. ed. Westermann; Bode,
Gesch. der Episch. Dichtk. pp. 472-478.) [L. S.]
ARFSTEAS ('Apifo'eas). 1. Son of Adeimantus. [ARISTEUS.]
2. Of Chios, a distinguished officer in the retreat of the Ten Thousand. (Xen. Anab. iv. 1.
~ 28, vi. ~ 20.)
3. Of Stratonice, was the victor at the Olympic
games in wrestling and the pancratium on the
same day, 01. 191. (Paus. v. 21. ~ 5; Krause,
Olympia, p. 249.)
4. An Argive, who invited Pyrrhus to Argos,
B. c. 272, as his rival Aristippus was supported by
Antigonus Gonatas. (Plut. Pyrrh. 30.)
5. A grammarian, referred to by Varro. (L.L.
x. 75, ed. Muller.)
ARI'STEAS or ARISTAEUS, a Cyprian by
nation, was a high officer at the court of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, and was distinguished for his mili-;ary talents. Ptolemy being anxious to add to
mis newly founded library at Alexandria (B. c.
273) a copy of the Jewish law, sent Aristeas and
kndreas, the commander of his body-guard, to
rerusalem. They carried presents to the temple,
nd obtained from the high-priest, Eleazar, a getuine copy of the Pentateuch, and a body of
eventy elders, six from each tribe, who could
ranslate it into Greek. On their arrival in
igypt, the elders were received with great distinclon by Ptolemy, and were lodged in a house in
he island of Pharos, where, in the space of
eventy-two days, they completed a Greek version
f the Pentateuch, which was called, from the

ARISTEIDES. 293
number of the translators, Kaia ros 4~S'c oicovTa
(the Septuagint), and the same name was extended to the Greek version of the whole of the Old
Testament, when it had been completed under the
auspices of the Ptolemies. The above account is
given in a Greek work which professes to be a
letter from Aristeas to his brother Philocrates, but
which is generally admitted by the best critics to
be spurious. It is probably the fabrication of an
Alexandrian Jew shortly before the Christian
aera. The fact seems to be, that the version of the
Pentateuch was made in the reign of Ptolemy
Soter, between the years 298 and 285 B. c. for the
Jews who had been brought into Egypt by that
king in 320 B. c. It may have obtained its name
from its being adopted by the Sanhedrim (or
council of seventy) of the Alexandrian Jews. The
other books of the Septuagint version were translated by different persons and at various times.
The letter ascribed to Aristeas was first printed
in Greek and Latin, by Simon Schard, Basil. 1561,
8vo., and reprinted at Oxford, 1692, 8vo.; the
best edition is in Gallandi Biblioth. Patr. ii. p.
771. (Fabric. Bib. Graec. iii. 660.)
The story about Aristeas and the seventy interpreters is told, chiefly on the authority of the letter but differing from it in some points, by Aristobulus, a Jewish philosopher (ap. Euseb. Praep.
Evan. xiii. 12), Philo Judaeus (it. Mos. 2), Josephus (Ant. Jud. xii. 2), Justin Martyr (Cohort.
ad Graec. p. 13, Apol. p. 72, Dial. cum Tryph. p.
297), Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. iii. 25), Clemens
Alexandrinus (Strom. i. p. 250), Tertullian
(Apolog. 18), Eusebius (Praep. Evan. viii. 1),
Athanasius (Synop. S. Scrip. ii. p. 156), Cyril of
Jerusalem (Catech. pp. 36, 37), Epiphanius (De
Mens. et Pond. 3), Jerome (Praef. in Pentateuch;
Quaest. in Genes. Prooem.), Augustine (De Civ.
Dei, xviii. 42, 43), Chrysostom (Adv. Jud. i. p.
443), Hilary of Poitiers (In Psalm. 2), and
Theodoret. (Praef. in Psalm.) [P. S.]
ARI'STEAS and PAPIAS, sculptors, of Aphrodisium in Cyprus, made the two statues of centaurs
in dark grey marble which were found at Hadrian's
villa at Tivoli in 1746, and are now in the Capitoline museum. They bear the inscription APICTEAC
KAI IAnIIAC A4PPOAICIEIC. From the style of
the statues, which is good, and from the place
where they were discovered, Winckelmann supposes that they were made in the reign of Hadrian.
Other statues of centaurs have been discovered,
very much like those of Aristeas and Papias, but
of better workmanship, from which some writers
have inferred that the latter are only copies. The
two centaurs are fully described by Winckelmann
( Werke, vi. 282, with Meyer's note; vii. 247), and
figured by Cavaceppi (Raccolta di Statue, i. tav. 27,
28) and Foggini (Mus. Capit. tav. 13, 14.) [P.S.]
ARISTEIDES ('Aptoreivss ). 1. Son of Lysimachus, the Athenian statesman and general, makes his
first certain appearance in history as archon eponymus of the year 489 B. c. (Mar. Par. 50.) From
Herodotus we hear of him as the best and justest
of his countrymen; as ostracised and at enmity
with Themistocles; of his generosity and bravery
at Salamis, in some detail (viii. 79, 82, and 95);
and the fact, that he commanded the Athenians in
the campaign of Plataea. (ix. 28.) Thuicydides
names him once as co-ambassador to Sparta with
Themistocles, once in the words 1Tv en' 'Aporela iov
rpopov. (i. 91, v. 18.) In the Gorgias of Plato, he